Huawei, Chulalongkorn Uni join forces for digital renaissance in Thailand

The document was signed in a ceremony on Friday between Huawei Technologies (Thailand) chief executive officer David Li and the university’s president, Prof Bundhit Eua-arporn.

This landmark pact marks a significant stride towards cultivating a thriving ecosystem for digital innovation in Thailand.

The MoU encompasses several areas of collaboration, namely:

• Cultivating an ICT innovative ecosystem: The partnership is geared towards nurturing digital skills and new innovation endeavours among students, educators, developers and entrepreneurs. Key focal points include 5G, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and digital leadership.

• Facilitating talent exchange and knowledge transfer: Through avenues like job fairs, competitions and establishing a digital talent network, the collaboration aims to facilitate seamless talent exchange and sharing of knowledge.

• Revolutionising education, healthcare, and agriculture: By infusing digital intelligence into industry production systems, the partnership seeks to transform teaching, production and learning processes across the education, healthcare and agriculture sectors.

“In this rapidly evolving digital landscape, the need for transformation is no longer a question of ‘why’, but a question of ‘how’. Chulalongkorn University, the leading cradle of knowledge and learning, is taking a visionary approach to innovation. Huawei looks forward to creating an Industry-University-Research Collaboration with Chulalongkorn University, especially on the root technology innovation and local ecosystem,” David Li said at the signing ceremony.

Prof Bundhit echoed the sentiments of proactive collaboration, stressing the urgency for joint endeavours to identify key partnership areas and create new avenues for learning and working in Thailand’s digital era.

This milestone is built upon a robust foundation of cooperation between Huawei and Chulalongkorn University. In 2020, Chulalongkorn’s Faculty of Engineering signed an MoU with Huawei Technologies (Thailand) to support research and development in engineering innovation.

After this, Chula’s School of Agricultural Resources joined Huawei in holding a series of training programmes on AI, 5G and ICT leadership in 2022 and 2023.

Over the past two decades, the two sides have collaborated extensively in student recruitment initiatives, like the “Huawei Seeds for Future” youth training programme and groundbreaking research initiatives such as the green energy whitepaper.

In line with Thailand’s vision to enhance the digital economy’s contribution to GDP to 30% by 2027, recent government strategies such as Cloud First and the second phase of the AI National Strategy highlight the importance of pioneering innovation and developing a robust ecosystem involving forward-looking educational institutions and private enterprises. These endeavours emphasise the urgency for collaborations between academia such as Chulalongkorn University, industry leaders like Huawei Technologies and government bodies to realise the nation’s digital aspirations and propel sustainable growth for Thai society.